CALLIBRA: THE CURSED EYE OF ARAK

CHAPTER FOUR

TOWER OF IVÁDIA

Nika immediately got up from the chair when she saw her mother's reflection and tried to embrace her, but she backed away.

"Mother, you scared me. Where have you been all this time? We were all waiting for you," she said to her and she did not say a word. 

She looked down at Isidora's face and her eyes met the blood stains on her chest from the puncture in her neck. She covered her mouth with both hands and tears rolled down her eyes.

"Mother, what happened to you?" She could only speak through her tears. She tried to reach for her hand and she moved backward again. 

"No, no, mother, you are dead, you died out there!" she screamed loudly and Amaia ran into the room after hearing her scream. 

"Sister Isidora!" said Amaia. Stunned, she does not let herself say another word. 

"Mother, talk to me!" She shouted and Isidora smiled.

"I will not be here too much longer, I am hanging on so I can pass my spirit on to you. Find me!" She said as she walked towards them and disappeared into the hallway. 

"Mother!" she called out and Amaia took her in her arms.

"Sister, if she does not pass her spirit on to you, you know what will happen. We will be a coven without a leader and in this time of war we cannot afford to take that risk, we cannot be vulnerable in front of them. We have to find her before she dies," Amaia said to her while lifting her head and wiping Nika's tears. 

"You are right sister, I need to take her spirit as soon as possible if I really want to make them pay for what they did to my mother," she said and Amaia grinned.

"Inform our sisters! Tell them what we just saw. We have to go out there," she instructed Amaia. She left Nika's room as quickly as she could.

Amaia went from room to room trying to find some witches who would join the search for Isidora. She entered Varia's room and got up from her bed.

"Sister! Is Sister Isidora back yet?" she said and Amaia did not know what to tell her. 

She was the youngest here and did not know how she would take it. Isidora was not only the leader of the coven, she was like a mother to them all. 

"Sister! Why are you ignoring me? Talk to me," she yelled at Amaia, and she shivered. She dropped onto her bed when she noticed the expression on Amaia's face, the sadness she could no longer hide. 

"No, no, no, no!" She screamed while covering her face with her hands. 

"Varia," Amaia said as a tear rolled down my cheek. She closed her eyes and the tears were still finding their way through her closed eyelids. She looked up at Amaia and Amaia sat down next to her. 

"She's not dead yet, she's still holding in her last breath. Nika had yet to absorb her spirit. If you want to see her before she leaves us to join our deceased sisters, you must come with us," Amaia said to her and she wiped her tears. 

"But - what about the dragon, how do we get past him to the field?" she asked and Amaia had no answer to these questions. 

"Well, I do not know how we will do it, but we have no choice. Her spirit must be passed to Nika," Amaia said and she nodded. 

"When do we leave?" she asked.

"Now, we leave now," Amaia answered, standing up and putting on her coat. Amaia already had hers on. 

They lit out of the hallway and went to Nika's room. 

Amaia and Varia went to Nika's room with their torches while she also put on her coat.

"Nika! I told our sisters not to follow us because we might be noticed. I suggest that you, I and Varia go to your mother alone," Amaia said and Varia nodded.

"Alright, sister, I think you are right," she said to Amaia and she nodded.

They left the room and went down the stairs. 

Just as they were about to push open the inner gate, Althea quickly approached them. 

"Sisters! Let me come with you. Nika, please," she said, and Nika turned to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

"We really can not afford to risk any more lives. Stay here with our sisters, Althea. You'll be stronger in numbers if anything happens while we are out there. We do not know what's out there, and we can not tell what's going to happen. That's why we decided to go alone," Nika told her and she was silent for a while.

"I know, sister, but I also know that you three are nothing compared to what is out there. You know what the creature is capable of, you saw it in the book, the dragons are a threat to our sovereignty. Let me follow you, we have a better chance against them if we are more numerous," she insisted and Nika realized that she might also be right.

"Light your torch and join us at the gate. . ."

After Althea joined them they reached the gate in no time. The dragon was not awake, but even if it was,  it could not have seen them as they were still under the coverage of the cloak which covered the entire city including the gate. There were somewhere between the Mandrin quarters, the slums were humans without magic lived between the city gate and the inner gate which led to the castle.

“What are you doing, why are you sneaking out?” A Mandrin woman said to them. She was passing by, and after seeing the four witches walking cautiously near the gate, she wondered what could have made the witches so afraid. 

“Are you afraid of something? I think that is the reason why you cloaked the city,” she said,  “you are scared of something, there's something out there which frightens you, am I right?” She added.

Varia turned to her with a fierce look on her face and her eyes glowed red light as she summoned an eccrifyte on her. 

The eccrifyte, a magical creature made by the witches. It had the figure of a man, black scales, a stinger and sharp claws.

“Tell that to the eccrifyte!” Varia said to her as the eccrifyte she summoned appeared behind her. The eccrifyte touched the Mandrin woman with a finger and cast her into nothingness, making her vanish from their sight.

The cries of the woman, on which Varia invoked the eccrifyte, awakened the dragon at the point where they passed him.

The dragon sniffed and they stopped. They hid behind a rock wide enough to hide them from his view. He growled and lay back down on the ground when he saw no one. They watched him for a while to make sure he did not suspect anything, and then started moving again. 

They managed to get past the dragon, and now they tried to cross the bridge that led to the field where the fifth tower was built. 

"Are you sure my mother is in the field?" asked Nika.

"Yes. Where else would she be? She was there when she asked us to go back to the castle and make sure it was cloaked. Callibra was there and she wanted to get her hands on it and take it to the castle," she answered and they continued walking.

Althea and Varia were ahead of Amaia and Nika. They crossed the bridge, but Amaia and Nika were still passing it.

"Nika! We found her, your mother is here!" Althea called to them from the other end of the bridge.

Nika looked at Amaia, and they both hurried down to them. 

"Mother! Mother! Mother!" she cried as she rushed to where Varia and Althea were standing. Nika covered her own mouth as she saw her mother lying on the ground. 

She walked toward them, and Varia and Althea made way for her, taking a few steps back. She walked through their midst and knelt down next to Isidora and burst into tears. 

"Mother, tell me who did this to you," she whispered to Isidora, and Isidora lifted her hand and put it lovingly against her cheek. 

"None of that matters anymore, all that matters is that you have to find them. Find them and get Callibra!" She said and Nika held her hand tightly as she sobbed.

"Mother, do not stress, I will heal you," Nika said to her and blood seeped from the open wound on her neck as she tried to giggle.

"Mother! Be careful," Nika admonished her, stroking her hair. 

"Do not you think I have already tried to heal myself? That's the reason I am still alive now. It has kept me awake until this moment to give you my spirit. You can no longer heal me and bring me to this world. I am already standing in front of the gate that will lead me to our deceased sisters," she said.

"Do not pretend that you are still a child. I raised you to be such a strong girl, stronger than I was at your age," she said and Nika forced herself to smile as tears rolled down her cheeks. 

"Thank you, Mother, thank you for everything!"

"It will not take me much longer. You have to do it now. The dragons will not give it to you without kicking up the dust. They will make war!" She said and Nika nodded. 

"Now do it!" said Isidora.

"Claim my spirit!" She whispered breathlessly, about to take her last breath, and Nika knew this was the right time to pull out the bottle of spirits. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her cloak and pulled out a small red bottle.

"The bottle of spirits, the only thing that could contain the spirit of a coven leader. Who would have thought that mine would be in that bottle tonight, at the time I spoke to our sisters in the morning?" said Isidora, stroking Nika's cheek one last time before speaking the words.

"Respir anoté ingdinté spir otis casta o spiritia!"

"Respir anoté ingdinté spir otis casta o spiritia!"

"Respir anoté ingdinté spir otis casta o spiritia!"

Nika recited the spell three times and Isidora gasped and released her last breath, which was her spirit. A green smoke that found its way into the bottle that Nika held in my hand. Nika cried again as she rolled back the lid of the bottle. She closed her mother's eyes, running her hand down from her forehead to the bridge of her nose. She cried even more as she laid her head on her chest.

"Sister, we have to go now," Amaia called out to Nika from behind and she ignored her as she continued to cry. 

"Sister, the dragon could be on the alert soon. We have to go!" Amaia warned her again and she still did not respond.

She pulled her off Isidora's body as she continued to cry. . .

With tears in her eyes, Amaia dragged her onto the bridge. They walked across the bridge to the other side and back to the city. Now they were on the other side, having crossed the bridge. They could see the dragon lying on the ground in front of the city gate.

They were the only ones who could see and reach the city gate under the cloak. They could see the dragon and it looked like it was sleeping deeply. 

Nika walked past her sisters Althea, Varia and Amaia towards the dragon while her eyes burned in red flames. Her fierce expression alerted Amaia, and she knew exactly what she was up to. Nika wanted revenge, she wanted to slay the dragon for what she thought he had done to her mother.

"Sister, stop it! What are you doing?" shouted Amaia to Nika as she, Althea and Varia stepped back. 

"The tower is that way, have you lost track?" shouted Amaia again, and Nika ignored her.

"Sister! You can not fight it alone!" shouted Althea at her and Nika shouted back, "They killed my mother!"

"Isidora was our sister, do you think it does not hurt us to see her die in front of us, do you think we do not want to make war on the dragons, do you think we would not like to slay every single one of them for what they did to our sister? Nika, sister, please, we all want to do what you are about to do, but not like this, not when we are unprepared," Amaia said and Nika stopped to listen to her. 

It did not sound like what Nika would like to hear at that moment. All she wanted was revenge, and until she had what she wanted, she was not ready to listen.

"Sisters, I will not listen to you, not until I have spilled his blood and seen his head fall to the ground and kick up dust," Nika said as she used her mind magic to move the two heavy metals on the ground near the bush. 

She clenched both hands tightly into fists and held them in the air above her shoulders while the strong metals floated in the air under the control of her two clenched fists - each of them controlling a metal rod. Her eyes burned with yellow flames and she clenched both fists even tighter. She hurled her fists backward over her shoulder and the metals retracted, forming into sharp-edged sticks - like giant spades. She flung her fists into the air in front of her and the floating spears came loose.

The spares crashed on the back of the dragon's head and both shattered before her eyes. Nika's mouth opened when she saw this, and she also saw that the dragon woke up from it. The spares did not harm him and had no effect on his body. The dragon growled and spat fire in Nika’s direction as it reared up.

“Nika!”  roared Amaia and Nika shielded herself from the fire coming from the dragon Cicero’s mouth.

Nika expelled a thick black mist that enveloped her and protected her from the fire while she remained in it. She was thankful that she was fast enough.

The dragon became aware of the fact that the fire could not reach her as long as Nika was inside the circle, so he swept her off her feet with his left  wing and she landed on her back.

“Sister!” Nika heard Amaia scream as she hit the ground. The dragon raised his right foot over her body with the intention of crushing her under his foot and she lost all hope of breaking free.

She tried to put up a shield, but she was still too weak from the first blow, so her magic did not work.

“Amaia!” Nika cried out as she saw her take her place and saw the two claws protruding from her back. “No! No! Sister! ” Nika cried out as blood dripped from Amaia’s back onto her face.

“Go back to the castle,” Amaia whispered breathlessly as blood ran from her mouth down her chin. 

“I am sorry, sister,” Nika said to her as she was about to take her last breath.

“I forgive you,” Amaia said as the dragon slipped its claws from her chest and raised its foot again to strike Nika as well. She rolled out from under his foot and cast a spell that kicked up dust in front of his eyes. This caused him to lose sight of her as she ran back to Varia and Althea, who were waiting for her at the gate.

They passed through the cloak and the portal healed behind them. The  dragon saw them go through the cloak. It flew, and tried to go through as well, throwing itself at the cloak. He bounced off the cloak as it proved to be stronger than him.

He growled and spat out fire, but the cloak absorbed it. He became frustrated and walked away-threw himself into the air and flew away.

Nika fell to her knees and cried over Amaia’s death.

Althea and Varia pulled her up and supported her back to the inner gate. 

She sat outside the inner gate and cried —refusing to follow them inside. “She pleaded with me, she begged me not to attack the dragon, but I ignored her. She took my place even though I refused to listen to her. I deserve what would have happened to me, but Amaia, she doesn't deserve to die. She knew the dangers involved and warned that we stayed away,” she cried to them and they both watched her, having absolutely nothing to say.